- The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that in the last two quarters of 2015, it has recorded only four collapses in Nigeria’s electricity supply systems.
- TCN stated that unlike 2013 and 2014 when the sector had persistent records of collapses; 22 in 2013 and nine in 2014, all of which resulted in degrees of power cuts in the system, it has only had four from January to June following upgrades in the system.
- The company’s general manager, public affairs, Seun Olagunju said in a recent release in Abuja that two of the four incidents occurred in May and resulted in low generation of about 1400 megawatts.
- Olagunju also explained that most of the collapses had come from shortages in gas supply and not necessarily from transmission constraints.
“It is public knowledge that the frequency of system collapses has been going down drastically following several equipment and infrastructure upgrade by TCN besides aggressive capacity building of the system operators,” Olagunju said.
- She further explained: “In 2013, there were 22 instances of system collapses and in 2014, this was drastically brought down to only nine. This year, the transmission grid has experienced only four system collapses out of which two in May is attributable to extremely low generation of around 1400MW due to gas supply shortages.”
“In fact majority of these collapses are due to shortages in gas supply which creates serious load/generation imbalance. But there is a serious effort ongoing to reduce these collapses,” Olagunju added.
- She equally noted that the System Operations (SO) of TCN has secured spinning reserve contracts of 295MW, to provide stability and cushion the system in an event of sudden load/generation changeover.
- Olagunju however did not disclose the details of the spinning reserve contract, especially the particulars of the generation outfit that has been contracted for the spinning reserve.
- She nevertheless affirmed that the TCN will continue to work at enhancing the transmission capacity and reliability of the national grid in order to provide improved and sustainable power delivery to public electricity distribution companies in the country.
- Nigeria’s power sector had in the last couple of years, experienced protracted system collapses which were before the federal government’s late financial intervention, caused by weak transmission.
- Souce: Thisday
